I’m not pleased. I keep going back and forth over whether to start over on the main frame of the station house. Not starting over from scratch, just….taking apart and realigning. Something went wrong somewhere and I have to try to figure it out.In the mean time…

When we last left, we were about here on the station house progress…I decided I’m going to do the center portion of the floor (shown in white) I’m going to do individual planks for the loading deck, instead of using a scored sheet of styrene. Doing the individual planks for the back was not that hard, so I’m going to do all the planking that way. The loading deck also fell short of what it should be.

I did finish this portion of the braking area, however. After living with this color on the tracks for a while….

I decided to go with natural wood with (that same) blue trim.

One area that I can keep continuing to work on are the J turns out of the station.

This week I'll be working on the very front end of the station house which involves the two hook-shaped turns that take the trains to the lift hill. I put on the ledgers yesterday, and now I'm making templates for the track gauge.

Soon I'll be adding track!!

The trains will depart the station and split before joining again at the top of the lift hill.

Side a

Side b

I was able to pull this AWESOME screen grab from "Abbot and Costello go to Hollywood". This is where the trains switch sides. A VERY rare angle and very helpful.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. You’re all probably going to roll your eyes when you find out I’ve had to go back and REDO the entire front half of the station house.

The easiest way I can explain it, what was originally going to be built in two sections should have been built as one unit. When I was trying to splice the two pieces together, it really fuc..d things up. Plus I was going back and looking at some previous photos and was not really happy with what I was seeing. And this is an important model so I want it to be perfect.

Good news is I’m thrilled with how it’s all coming together now.

Someone asked me how I made my track:

I am going to duplicate Fred Church’s track style (for the most part). There are eight layers of 2x lumber in his track. Here is layer one – eight sticks of 2x2 (for each rail). Photo shows four rail’s worth. The evenly spaced marks help keep the laminations consistent.

I clip off a section thusly

And move it over to the other side,

and attach.

That’s just the beginning – For the rest of the way I repeat the process one stick at a time. Clip

Move to the other side

Now we have a nice long stretch of authentically replicated Fred Church sub-track.

Working some handmade crimps from one end to the other gives me a nice curve. I just curve it close enough, and it’s amazingly pliable and easy to get a perfect curve.

Two sub track runs in place

Leap ahead: Added ties, another layer of laminates (crossing in the opposite direction as the bottom) and boards that the original Cyclone Racer had between the rails. I’m waiting for a shipment of more materials before I can stack the other 5 layers.

Built into my bents are false horizontal anchors or bottoms. The are for the express purpose of making sure all posts are level.

Problem I had with the Airplane, especially in the spirals, the structure started to push outward and bents started leaning without my catching it.

Note that one bent on the way lower left and how the anchor appears to be tipped off the base.... That crooked anchor is a more immediate way I can tell if a bent is not straight. Also built in it's a way to correct the problem and as of now has been fixed.

Those of you might ask, "Why don't you just glue the bottom to the base?" I like that I can remove sections off the base for better access to detail.

Soon I will be done with the front of the Cyclone Racer station house and will continue final work on the back end. Then I will plug the two together.

I think I might be able to start working on twin lift hill bents tomorrow!

The development of the Cyclone Racer station sign.

After searching unsuccessfully for a font that was identical to the Cyclone Racer’s I simply just opened a photo in Microsoft paint and painted over. I found the best head-on shot of the front sign. The shot was easyyyy to find. First outline

Then color in.

I changed the lower line to blue. Coloring this all in really took a toll on my index finger.

I wasn’t going to, but decided to, make the deck with individual strips of plastic. I was going to score lines into a sheet of plastic but I think this way would look more realistic.

The underside of the deck.

What will be the exit.

Entrance deck is primed and ready to paint. Also is the sign, and the battens for the eaves can be seen.

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